


You're a Wild Little Bruise

by bpd_murdock



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spoilers for Season 2, and then more hurt, but a lot of explicit mentions of it, definitely some sex, gorey language, let's just pretend season 3 never happened, no actual gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:58:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5124950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bpd_murdock/pseuds/bpd_murdock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is a bad idea,” says Roman, except he’s not really pulling away, “All of this. This is a bad idea.” All of their ideas are bad ideas. Let’s hunt a monster. Let’s leave each other in the dust. Let’s fucking fall in love.</p><p>“I know,” Peter replies, bringing his free hand to rest against Roman’s torso, fingers splayed across his bony ribcage, “I wanna be your favorite bad idea.” </p><p>And he already is. He’s the best damn idea Roman has ever had, and he lays naked in the forefront of his mind, his hairy body bare and swathed in holy white silk, bathed in sweet golden light and crucified. He’s Roman’s god, his past and his present and his future, and he knows it’s unhealthy. But everything about him is unhealthy: everything Roman Godfrey adores will eventually kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally going to be just a big oneshot, but i've decided to do it in three parts instead. so here's the first part, and the rest should be up within a week or two. the blurb in the summary is from the second chapter, so if you get to the end of this part and haven't seen it, that's why. 
> 
> my title is from this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrITE-JE2jY from the excellent film "the devil's carnival", which is on nexflix if you're interested! 
> 
> i didn't have a beta reader, and if anyone's interested in beta-reading the next two parts, message me and let me know! you can also find me on tumblr (it's on my profile, because i change my url a lot!)

It's all quiet in the bedroom until Roman puts his hand on Peter's shoulder in the middle of the night. Neither of them were very close to falling asleep (how can they? After all this, after all they've just done, after all they've just seen, how can they ever find a way to sleep again? Every time Roman closes his eyes, he sees the juicy red tendons of the wolf's jaw as it's ripping apart--as _he's_ ripping it apart-- Peter's lifeless form as he's pulled through. Every time Peter closes his eyes, he sees Roman's mouth open too wide, completely unhinged, and they both give each other nightmares.), but the touch is still jarring and cuts through whatever thick tension had built up like a brick wall between them. 

Peter sets his hand on Roman's, and Roman has this fluttery feeling in his tummy that's crushed under thirty two thousand pounds of lead and rusty fucking nails as soon as Peter pushes him away. 

“Please, I just…really need space right now.”  

“Ew,” says Roman, rolling over in the bed and punching his pillow a few times before shoving his face into it like a petulant little boy (he's a man now. Kinda. He's got a job, and an office, and a baby. Well. He had a baby. And now she's gone, and he doesn't have anybody.), “What the fuck? Okay.” 

“Can you not be a fucking asshole about it? For once?” Peter sounds tired. Roman doesn't fucking care. 

 “I can be a fucking asshole about whatever the fuck I want,” he snaps, because it's true, he can, “And anyway. I should be the one bitching about “needing space” or whatever. I just lost my fucking daughter.” 

It's silent, and Roman hates it. Then, Peter opens his fat ol' mouth and speaks, and Roman hates it even more.

“She kinda felt like my daughter too.” 

Roman sits up, nearly banging his face on the headboard as he turns over to look at Peter. He looks tired, too. Still doesn't fucking care. This would be easy if Lynda were here. Roman always liked Lynda, and Lynda had always, to some degree, liked Roman. 

(More than his mother ever had, at least. The fucking bitch. The same fucking bitch who had just ripped out his father’s heart–his _father_ , wow, Norman was his _father_ –and is having a beauty rest in the guest room, offering to help them save her “bloodline”. Not Nadia. Not Miranda. But her fucking “bloodline”.) 

She always bridged the gap between them, and filled in all the blank spaces inside of them that were lacking either love or reason. But now Lynda's gone, off in Europe with her people.

Roman doesn't have any people. He doesn't have anybody at all. He keeps reminding himself that, over and over again, like an obsession and a curse and a prayer all at once. _You have no one. Everybody will leave you. Everybody will hurt you. Because you're just that easy to hurt and just that easy to leave._  

“Just because you put your dick inside Letha while she was pregnant doesn’t make you Nadia’s father.” Yikes. Letha. There's a name he's been trying to block from his memory,and by the way Peter flinches, he must be trying to forget her too. _Don’t you dare fucking forget her_ , he thinks in a voice so different from his own, and he can't tell if the thoughts are directed at Peter or at himself. Probably both. Oh well. _You deserve to fucking suffer. To think about her every fucking day because yeah, it hurts. It hurts and it fucking sucks but if you don’t suffer then you might not feel anything at all._ “And if it did, skipping town after she was born makes you a pretty fucking terrible dad.” 

Peter sits up, and there's hurt in his eyes. Good. “At least I came back.” 

He isn't hurting enough. Isn't hurting as much as Roman is. And Roman's been hurt so badly that he's spent his whole life hurting people back. “Yeah, you came back and asked me for money,” he spits, and god, it tastes bitter so on his tongue, like low quality coke and stale cigarettes, “You didn’t come back for her, or even for me. You came back because you needed a fucking favor.” _And the worst part is that you didn’t even have to ask, I would’ve given you anything, anything at all, anything you wanted. Anything in the world and all you have to do is ask for it, and I can make it yours._ “So don’t act like you came back to be in her life, you asshole. You never wanted to come back for us.” _For me._

Peter, the bastard that he is, rolls over. “Hey. Look at me.” 

“Why? I thought you said you wanted space.” 

“And now I don’t,” he replies, a little brusquely, and now Roman is the one flinching. He wants Peter to hurt, but he doesn't want Peter to hurt him back. Which is shitty, because he knows deep down that neither of them should hurt each other at all. But Roman is a monster, and he needs to be punished, and he punishes himself by hurting Peter and making Peter hurt him. It's really fucking sick, but he can't stop, because he has so many things he has to atone for. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I left because I was scared, and I came back because I was scared. But I…" _What? You love me? Shut the fuck up._ “I have no reason to be anywhere else right now.” 

“Because of Nadia.” Roman knows how to fill in the blanks. “You’re going to help me get her and Miranda back, and then you’re going to leave again.” He doesn't know why he keeps trying to make Peter stay. Why he gets hopeful every day he wakes up and Peter is still around. Every second that passes makes him love and hate him a little more. Makes it harder and harder for him to prepare himself for the inevitable final goodbye. It probably isn't even going to be a goodbye at all. When Peter leaves, he doesn't give warning. You just wake up one morning with the rings off your fingers and the love outta your heart, and you know that it's all gone, like him, in a trail of smoke too faint to follow.  

Silence falls over them, and it's awkward and tense and charged with energy. Roman still hates the quiet. He can barely hear them both breathing, and it's gonna to drive him fuckin' nuts. Finally, Peter says:  

“I’m not gonna run away next time.”  

“Yes you are. You’re a gy”–Roman bites his tongue. That isn't his word to say. Isn't hisslur to reclaim, and he knows that now, knows it because someone had scratched _G*psyfucker i_ nto the detailing of his red Jag the day after Peter left, and he’d fallen to his knees and thought, _if only_. Now that he’s fucked Peter (and yes, it was amazing, but he tried to pretend to be unimpressed and focus on Miranda; but it was hard to do when after a little bit of kissing she’d leaned back against this very headboard and put a hand in her panties and said “Well, get to it. Don’t mind me.”), he…doesn't know where he was going with that. He’d fucked Peter. And he wants to again. But that (fucking Peter, loving Peter) doesn't mean that he'sallowed to reclaim a slur that's been used against Peter’s people for centuries. “You travel. That’s what you do. You don’t settle down, you don’t stay with people.” 

Peter reaches out and touches Roman’s back lightly, fingertips gentle as they trace the sharp, triangular bone of his shoulder blade. Where the wings had been. The wings Letha had seen when Roman had…When Roman had done what he’d done. What Olivia had made him do. “Maybe this time…Maybe I will. I dunno.” 

“What, you think we’re gonna get Nadia back and fucking play house?” Roman asks bitterly, “Is that what you think is gonna happen?” That’s what it had felt like, when he and Peter, and Miranda and Nadia, were all together under the same roof. It felt wholesome, in some sort of way. It felt right. And now that feeling's gone, and even if they got Nadia and Miranda back, it isn't going to ever come back. “You don’t get the right to make a home here. You never had the fucking right…But you did it anyway. You’d give me this false sense of security that you wanted me, as a friend, or as something more than a friend, I don’t know. And then you run away and leave me empty.” 

He’d felt so empty, so fucking hollow when Peter had run off with his tail between his legs. Like Peter had punched a hole in his guts, and then pulled out all his entrails one by one and shoved it into his suitcase next to his fucking socks. And Roman has had to grow around that hole. Roman has hadto grow around a lot of holes inside himself. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t fucking care. But don’t tell me that you’re going to stay when I know you’re not. You might want to stay, might think you’ll be able to, but you won’t. You just won’t.” 

 Instead of lifting his hand, Peter sets a second one down, this one on Roman’s arm, rolling his long, pale body over so they were looking at each other. “Will you just fuckin’ look at me?”  

Roman rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’m looking at your fucking ugly mug. Now what.”  

“I. Want. To. Stay.” 

“Yeah, you said that. But you won’t.” 

“I will.”

“Can we sleep now? Tomorrow we need to find Nadia.” They aren't going to find her in one day (they might not find her at all), but tomorrow can be a start. And he doesn't want to look at Peter right now, or feel his hands on him, because then he’ll just fall in love/hate with him all over again, and there just wasn’t any time for that. Not when they have shit to do. Not when he knows that Peter was just going to up and leave when the shit they have to do became the shit they’ve done. 

“Are you gonna ever come back to this conversation?”  

“No.” 

“Then we’re talking now.” 

Roman sits up and bats Peter’s hands away from him. “I don’t want to talk know. I want my family back. And I…I want you to be a part of it but you can’t.” And now all those feelings he kept pushing down, stacking them under thoughts he didn’t care about, start forcing their way past the concrete walls he’s built around himself. _No. No no no._ And here they are, all these ugly feelings of love and desire all wrapped in thorny stems and sharp, rusty wires. “Um…” 

Peter searches his eyes for something that he either can't find or can't identify. “Can I kiss you?”

“Why?” Roman asks, and then when Peter starts to move away, he adds, “Yeah. But why?” _Why would you want a monster like me?_ But Peter's monster too. And maybe that makes them perfect for each other. Maybe they can be monsters together, because who better to love beasts than beasts? 

 “I dunno. Because I love you.”  

“Shut the fuck up. No you don’t.” 

He shrugs. “Maybe I do. I think I do.” 

And all the sharp edges Roman had wrapped around his heart so tight that it was bleeding start to fall away. Now he's just raw and empty and swollen to the touch. Like a sad little boy who developed all sorts of personality disorders because nobody ever loved him. Shelly was the only person who ever said those words to him, in a voice that wasn’t even hers because she doesn't have one. “Okay.” 

“Okay, I can kiss you, or okay, I love you?” 

 “I already said you could kiss me, you asshole.”

This is the first time they’ve ever kissed without Miranda watching, so it feels like a first kiss all over again. His hands are shaking as Peter leans forward, and he isn't thirteen, he shouldn’t be anxious like this, he shouldn’t be trembling like this. What has Peter done to him? Kissing Peter like this is like putting on a sweater right after it just came out of the dryer. It isn't desperate, it isn'tsexy; they aren't pawing at each other, at hips and face and ass, at whatever else they can reach. It's soft and it's gentle and it makes Roman want to cry. 

 Peter can't do this to him. He shouldn't be able to. He shouldn't have this power. He shouldn't be able to lay Roman down and kiss him, pull the layers of clothes off his skin, the layers of skin off his body, and the layers of body off his soul. He shouldn't be able to leave Roman feeling squishy and vulnerable, and somehow empty and whole at the same time. It's like Roman's a kid on a bike and Peter just ripped off the fucking training wheels and pushed him down a hill so steep it's like a straight line directly into the center of the Earth.  And yet he's doing it. Because Peter does all the things he isn't supposed to (all the things he shouldn't be able to) just by nature.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is!!! chapter 2!!! ok so my wifi at school has been SUPER buggy, which is pretty embarrassing for the college, so it's taken me a few efforts to get this part up, but hopefully it'll work this time!!! i want to thank everybody for all the kudos and comments (i'm still working out how to use the comment system, so bear with me)!! chapter 3 will be up soon, i hope, and it WILL contain some sexual content (both boys are, of course, over the age of consent and legal adults), which i, a humble asexual, will be fumbling through for the first time. 
> 
> anyway, i want to thank everyone again for being so supportive!! i've got another peter/roman piece in the works in my head, too, so this is not the last y'all will be finding me in the hemlock grove tag :) 
> 
> enjoy, and feel free to hit me up on tumblr (check my profile!)

It's like that story Roman's always heard. The one about the frog and the scorpion, where the scorpion asks the frog if he can hitch a ride in the frog's shiny new red Jag; and the frog's like "No, what the fuck, you'll sting me." And the scorpion's like "Nah, I won't, I love you, I won't sting you." And the frog is so besotted with the scorpion because nobody's ever loved him before, so he gives the scorpion a ride in his shiny new red Jag, and then the scorpion stings him and as the frog's dying he's like "Yo, man, what the fuck? You said you wouldn't sting me! And that you loved me!" And the scorpion's like "Dude, what did you expect? I'm a scorpion." 

Except they're both scorpions, and they keep promising not to sting each other, but they do anyway just so they can get stung and feel something for once. They live to betray each other, and yet love each other unconditionally. They both see themselves as Judas, and the other as Christ, whom they must adore but also destroy. And it's really fucking sick, and Roman knows it's fucking sick, but he can't help but soak up every inch of Peter that he can as they kiss, swinging his ribcage open and pushing all his guts aside so Peter can climb inside and curl around his heart where he fucking belongs.  

Peter bites at his lip a little. It stings. So Roman bites him back. 

"What the fuck?" Peter mumbles as he moves back from the kiss (it's so fucking hard for them to pull away from each other, like trying to separate two magnets, like not even gravity wants them to be apart), thumb rubbing his (bruised but not bleeding) lip, “You tryin’ to get a taste?”  

“No.” Roman’s breathless at the thought. “Never.” 

“Why not? You think I’d taste bad?” 

Roman doesn’t want to think about how Peter would taste. He doesn’t want to think about taking Peter’s hand and turning it palm-up listening to the blood thrumming in his blue and purple veins. He doesn’t want to think about kissing Peter’s wrist, mouth open and tongue laving against his honey light skin (paler on the underside, but not by much) and tasting salt and sweat and the leftover musk of a joint smoked three days ago. He doesn’t want to think of biting down hard, doesn’t want to think about the hot rush of Peter’s blood in his mouth. But he thinks about it all the time. He sits by the window wrapped in blankets (he’s so cold, he’s always so cold) and thinks about sucking Peter dry until he’s as pale and as gaunt as Roman is. 

“Yeah,” he is all he can say, “Yeah. You smell horrible.” 

And, in the conventional sense, Peter does. He smells like dirt and weed and wet dog. He smells like gravel and grass and gasoline, and everything Roman should hate but doesn’t. Roman should want a boy that smells like fabric softener and fine wine. But instead he wants Peter.  

Peter stares at him and doesn’t say anything for a long time. Roman gets jumpy. He wiggles his foot and taps his fingers against Peter’s knee, and his eyes flit back and forth, attention flickering from one object in the room to another. The soft goose feather pillows. Peter. The soft, burgundy sheets. Peter. The lamp on the bedside table. Peter. The comforter that’s been nudged to the far left side of the bed because Roman’s a blanket hog. Peter. 

“Hey.” 

“What?” 

“What do you think it feels like?” 

 Roman gives him a look. “What do I think what feels like?” he asks, but he already knows what Peter’s about to say, and he really doesn’t want to talk about it because he likes to have his thoughts and feelings neatly compartmentalized; he’s not good at it, but he likes it. 

 And Peter knows that Roman knows what he’s about to say, and that Roman doesn’t want to talk about it because Roman likes to have his thoughts and feelings neatly compartmentalized; but Peter loves accidents. He loves mess. He loves car crashes and broken plates and getting dirt on his shoes. 

 “To be fed on.”  

They’ve both been thinking about it,and they both know how heavy this really is because it’s settling over them like a weighted blanket.  

“Shut up,” Roman says, pushing himself up on his arms and practically crawling away from Peter, wrapping himself up in the thick duvet andcovering his head with it like a little cocoon, and he can hear his mother’s voice tutting, _Oh, really, Roman, you’re far too old for this_. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” 

“Are you hungry?” 

He whips the blanket away from his face and twists his head on his skinny-ass neck to glare at Peter. “Yes, I’m fucking hungry. I’m _always_ hungry.” It eats away at him the way rust eats away at metal: the way barnacles cover shells. “I’m hungry all the time.” He always feels like there’s no way for it to get worse, and yet it does; every night he lays in bed and stares at his protruding ribs, and the dramatic reverse curve of his stomach, and wonders _how could it get any worse than this_? And yet every morning he’s dry heaving and sweating and falling all over himself with dizziness. 

He doesn’t want Peter to roll over. He doesn’t want Peter to touch him. He doesn’t want Peter to wave his wrist in front of his eyes, and he doesn’t want Peter to say: 

 “It’s okay.” 

 But Peter does, and Roman’s hands are shaking as he reaches for him,  Peter stretched out in front of him, and Peter curled up behind him, and Peter above him and below him, and outside him and inside him. And Roman’s crashing down around himself, but it doesn’t matter because Peter is _everywhere_ , with hand and heart outstretched to catch him.  

“I can’t,” he whispers, but still leans in close and presses his nose to Peter’s skin, breathing in iron, and what can only be described as _red,_ and he’s suddenly faint in a whole new way. Lightheaded and overwhelmed, and every cell in his body has honed in on just this smell. On a smell he should hate, belonging to a boy who should repulse him. “I can’t…I won’t be able to stop. I can’t, Peter, I can’t. I’ll kill you.” 

Peter laughs, because no he won’t. Roman won’t kill him. He might come close, but he won’t follow through. Even if there’s some deep, dark, repressed part of him that wants to, he won’t. And even if he tries, Peter won’t let him. That’s the great thing about whatever mistake-in-the-making they’ve got going on here: they check each other. Roman isn’t stronger than Peter, and Peter isn’t stronger than Roman. Everything they have is equal, and everything they share. 

“This is a bad idea,” says Roman, except he’s not really pulling away, “All of this. This is a bad idea.” All of their ideas are bad ideas. _Let’s hunt a monster. Let’s leave each other in the dust. Let’s fucking fall in love._

“I know,” Peter replies, bringing his free hand to rest against Roman’s torso, fingers splayed across his bony ribcage, “I wanna be your _favorite_ bad idea.” 

And he already is. He’s the best damn idea Roman has ever had, and he lays naked in the forefront of his mind, his hairy body bare and swathed in holy white silk, bathed in sweet golden light and crucified. He’s Roman’s god, his past and his present and his future, and he knows it’s unhealthy. But everything about him is unhealthy: everything Roman Godfrey adores will eventually kill him. 

Peter presses his lips to the back of Roman’s neck, his chin and jaw scruffy and coarse and perfect, and it makes Roman _quiver_. “You’re hungry.” And he’s touching his neck, _he’s_ touching his neck, he’s _touching_ his neck, he’s touching _his_ neck, he’s touching his _neck_ and Roman can’t take it anymore. There’s so many arteries there, so many thick channels pumping through the steely blood he craves so desperately, and he doesn’t know if he wants to eat himself, eat _Peter_ , or have _Peter_ eat _him_.

“No.” And Romanturns around in the mess of covered and sheets and pries Peter away. “No. Stop it. Don’t fucking—Don’t fucking touch me there, don’t fucking touch me.” He’s frantic, shoving at Peter’s arms and his chest, anywhere he can touch to get him _away_. “Don’t fucking touch my neck. _Ever._ Do you understand?” He’s still got Peter’s wrist bound tightly in his fist and he throws it back toward’s Peter’s chest like it’s trash. “Or there, either. Don’t ever fucking touch me there. Or let _me_ touch you there. Never.”  

“Fine,” says Peter, wounded, “Fine. Whatever. Jesus Christ, Roman. Are you okay?” 

 Roman probably doesn’t look okay. His hair is probably sticking up in three hundred different directions, and his eyes probably look maddened and glazed. His hands are shaking, and maybe they just _feel_ like they’re shaking more than they are, maybe they’re not shaking that bad at all, but it feels like he’s got chills, like he’s got a fever he can’t sweat out. 

“Don’t touch me there,” he whispers again. 

“Okay. Shit. Sorry.” Peter has his hands up in surrender, and Roman can see those soft wrists, and his sinewy veins stretched out across them like spiderwebs, and a couple bruises around one of them, bruises in the shapes of Roman’s fingertips. “I didn’t know, I”—

“Put your fucking hands down.” The thirst is still so new to him, still so fresh. He doesn’t know what’s he’s going to respond to, what’s going to trigger a descent into mad, wild hunger until he sees it. When Peter doesn’t move, Roman barks out “Put your fucking hands down!” 

Peter flinches as he raises his voice, and Roman wants to throw himself face-first onto a bed of nails. “Jesus, Roman…” He slowly, like he’s about to place a weapon on the floor and kick it away, lowers his hands and sets them palms-down on his thighs. “What was that all about?” When Roman doesn’t say anything, Peter’s fingers twitch upward, like he wants to badly to touch but has forgotten that he can’t.“What’s going through your pretty little head right now, huh?” Roman doesn’t say anything and Peter sighs. It’s a sigh like leaves blowing away in the wind, like losing a balloon and watching it float higher and higher until it’s out of sight. It’s melancholy. Like lemon candy. “Was it too much?”  

“Yeah,” Roman mumbles, “Are you angry?” He can’t have Peter mad at him. He just _can’t_ , he won’t be able to bear it,because Peter has to love and like him at all times. He’s not allowed to feel anything other than that. Ever. But Peter might just be a little pissed at Roman right now, and Roman is fucking terrified.  

Sighing like lost balloons and lemon drops again, Peter runs his hands through his dark, messy hair and says, “No. I’m not angry. We were moving too fast. I get that. And wrists and necks have lots of…you know…” Roman knows, but Peter still makes a vague gesture anyway. “I get why you’d freak out about, seeing as you’re…” He makes another weird wave of his hands. “Sorry. It’s my fault, I’m…it’s my fault, okay? You don’t have to worry about it. Don’t worry about it, okay? We should take things slow.” 

“Slow,” Roman repeats, but he doesn’t want to take it slow. He wants them to fuck each other to pieces, and then eat each other after. He wants to gently draw Peter’s lower lip into his mouth, and then rip it off and swallow it whole. Wants to sink his teeth into Peter’s soft, round ass and take a chunk. “We should take things slow.” 

 “Unless you don’t want to take things slow?” Peter offers, but he has no idea how much he’s really offering. 

 “Slow is…slow is what’s best,” Roman says, and Peter’s staring at his eyes again like he’s trying to find something he doesn’t know the name of. “What?” 

 “You don’t want to go slow.” 

“You’re right. I don’t. But we should.”  

And Peter’s crawling into his lap, his thigh on either side of Roman’s skinny hips, squeezing his middle like he’s a fucking nutcracker, and Roman’s got a shell so thick he can’t help but crack because he loves a challenge. “You don’t want to go slow,” he says again, looking down at Roman with eyes so gentle and wild all at once. Like he wants to kiss and kill him all at the same time. Shove his tongue into Roman's mouth and pull the trigger.  Which is understandable. Roman wants to kiss and kill Peter too. And if that doesn’t get him stiff in his sweatpants, nothing will. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?” 

“Peter,” he warns, because part of him knows that once they get started they won’t be able to stop: and that they won’t _want_ to stop. They’re young, and wild, and beautiful, and absolutely fucking obsessed with each other, and they might not stop until they (quite literally) rip each other apart. “This isn’t”— 

“A good idea?” Peter asks, and even though he’s usually so small in comparison to Roman, right now he looks larger than life, sitting in his lap with his shoulders squared, jaw set, and eyes steely with determination. Steel like Roman’s heart has to become, and steel like his heart is no longer able to be. Peter’s melted a hole through him like a laser. “Can you quitwith that? Is coke a good idea? Is getting drunk at your mother’s brunches a good idea? Actually—have you ever had a good idea in your _life_? Like, _ever_?” Okay. Fair enough. “What makes this any different?” 

_Because I do all these things to hurt myself, and this could be the first self-destructive thing I’ve done that could have real consequences. Could hurt us both_. But Roman keeps his mouth shut as he tries to be careful with his words. Select them carefully. Not blurt everything out and wear his heart like a painted target on his fucking forehead. “Fine,” he says, because he’d never be able to say no to Peter even if he wanted to. Peter tells him no all the time, but this time he’s telling him _yes_ , and Roman is absolutely reeling with it. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ hello, friends!!! i'm sorry it's taken me so long!! it's been a rough few weeks and i've really been lacking the motivation to sit down and hammer this part out!!! i've also never written a sex scene before, and being asexual, i had absolutely no clue how to write about something i've never experienced! i was also editing the previous chapters, just a little tweak here&there and changing the formatting a little
> 
> so i'm actually going to do a fourth piece and put the sex scene in there instead :( this is just a lot of making out. sorry!  
> again, thank you so much for all the kudos and comments!!! 
> 
> i made a romancek playlist on 8tracks if you want some mood music http://8tracks.com/pastel-scully/kiss-me-on-the-mouth-and-set-me-free-but-please-don-t-bite 
> 
> also, you can always drop by my profile to see my tmblr url and say hi xo

Peter’s eyes are a thousand stars and the corner of his perfect beautiful mouth twitches and turns up a little. “Fine, what?” 

“Peter.”  

“Use your words, Roman.”

 “Can we not do this?” 

 Peter’s grinning now, and Roman can see all his teeth and wants so desperately to shove himself between them, like a circus freak putting his head in the lion’s mouth. “No. We’re doing it.” He presses his hand, stubby fingers adorned with rings (and Roman wants to kiss every single one), against his chest. “Tell me that you want me to fuck you, and I’ll make it so.” 

“This isn’t sexy,” Roman mutters, and Peter pushes his palm a little harder against Roman’s sternum, and his entire body caves and collapses in around it. He lets Peter slowly roll him out across the mattress like a carpet, unfolding his limbs and leaving him open and bare.  

Peter slides up Roman’s body, setting his palms over Roman’s knuckles. Avoiding grabbing his wrists. Good idea. And he has Roman all stretched out underneath him like he’s on one of those weird table-like torture devices they saw on TV. You know. The taffy puller one. Roman feels like taffy underneath him, all bendable and chewy and malleable. “It will be,” he whispers breath hot on Roman’s jaw, and Roman doesn’t even know he’s closing his eyes until there’s a tap of two coarse but maddeningly gentle fingers on his cheek. “Hey. Eyes open.” 

Roman’s never liked his eyes, because he uses them all the wrong way. He uses them to make people do what he wants. They’re “enchanting” in all the ways eyes shouldn’t be, and he sometimes gets so angry, furious that he’s been given this power over other people and furious that he _uses_ it, that he wants to take two mellon ballers and pop them put. But he opens them anyway, and he hates it when Peter smiles because it makes him feel all kinds of vulnerable.  

“Say it,” Peter urges, his hand settled on Roman’s chest, over the heart that he’s not always sure he has, “Come on. Humor me. Tell me you want me to fuck that sweet little ass of yours.” He starts laughing when Roman starts laughing. “Come on! I’m serious! Tell me your want me to _deflower_ you!” 

“You’ve got to be _the worst_ dirty talker I’ve ever met in my life,” Roman says, covering his face with a long arm, “And I’ve met a lot of dirty-talkers in my life.” 

 And then, Peter’s all too close again, sitting on Roman’s hips and grabbing him by the hair (and wow, okay, that’s…really hot?  Like, he knows he likes having his hair pulled but having _Peter_ pull his hair is like? He’s embarrassingly hard in his pajama pants right now, and all he’d wanted to do was sleep. How did they end up here?), leaning down so the chain about his neck pools into the hollow of Roman’s throat. But Peter won’t touch his neck, for which Roman is grateful. 

“Really?” he asks quietly, his voice soft and feather-white, “You think this is funny? You think it’s funny, that I want to pin you down and fuck you like the animal I am?” His hands are hot on Roman’s arms and it makes him shiver. “You think it’s funny, that I want to fucking tear you apart? Choke you and claim you because you _belong_ to me, you understand? You’re fucking _mine_ , and you were mine from the second we met.” _Because nobody will never love you like this but me._

 Roman’s trembling now, his eyes wide and glossed over like giant marbles in his skull. Peter drops his face so he can nose at Roman’s jaw, and holy shit, he’s scenting Roman, rubbing himself all up against him, covering him in his smell. Jesus Christ.  

“I wanna mark you up. Make sure everybody sees your pretty skin and know that the White Prince of this shitty old town loves taking my dick. Say it. I want you to beg for it because you’re a spoiled little brat who’s never had to beg for anything in your fucking life.”  

And Roman begs. He begs like doing so will make him feel whole. He’s so hard he’s aching, and this sexual desire, this impossible attraction to Peter god damn Rumancek hits him like a punch to the gut and leaves him reeling. “Please. Fuck, Peter, please.” He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for anymore, he just needs something, anything. The words feel so weird in his mouth, because he’s never had to ask for anything nicely. All he has to do is hold out his palm and he’s got the whole world.  

Peter’s got his hips set against Roman’s, not moving, but Roman can still feel his hard dick pressed against his hip and his vision’s begun to go spotty. Everything is a warm, fuzzy haze, and it keeps rising in temperature the more he looks at Peter. He can feel the heat in his cheeks, and at his hairline like his scalp is melting. Like he’s holding his palm over an open flame. But he can only feel it around him, on his skin. He can’t feel it inside. He just feels like cracked ice under his flesh. 

“You’re so fucking pretty when you beg,” Peter murmurs, brushing his thumb over Roman’s cheek. 

 “You’d like it even more if you were fucking me.” It’s a challenge, a challenge which he hopes Peter will accept. And he does, he leans down and presses his hips down against Roman’s in the best possible way. 

Peter grabs Roman by the collar (not the throat, never the throat, he knows that now and Roman is grateful) and drags him up for a searing kiss that’s so different from the one before; it’s all teeth and tongue and nails, and Peter isn’t kissing him because he loves him anymore; Peter’s kissing him because he wants to fuck him. 

And claim him, or whatever, which Roman’s probably going to look back on and recognize as really corny, but right now Peter is in his lap, and kissing him, and his dick is so hard that he feels like he might faint. Peter’s hands are all over him, grasping his shirt and fumbling with his buttons and palming his groin, and he’s like a quadruple-armed god, and Roman’s scalp is pretty much peeling off his skull right now. 

He can’t feel his face. It might be melting. It’s probably melting, just like the rest of him, because he feels like nothing but a delicate container, off-white and eggshell thin, filled with sloppy, sparkling pink goop that’s spilling out of his nose, mouth, and eyes. There's parts of him oozing out, and parts of him that are still hard as a rock and cold as ice, and he's just a mess of contradictions alway, all the time. Like there's parts of him he still can't bring himself to let go of yet.  But Peter collects that goop in his palm and licks it off his fucking fingers like it’s dripping ice cream. He’s got his hand in Roman’s collar, and his eyes on Roman’s mouth. His lips are puffy, swollen, and red, and Roman knows that his own are definitely worse. 

“You’re so fucking hot,” Peter growls out, and kisses Roman again. Just as he had pulled him up, he pushes him down, somehow stretching his entire body over Roman’s even though he’s smaller, with shorter, stronger limbs. 

Nobody’s taller than Roman. He doesn’t _live_ in some ivory tower, he _is_ the fucking ivory tower. But right now, with Peter’s entire body weight bearing down on his hips, he feels so _small._

“This.” Roman’s tugging at Peter’s boxers, because Peter doesn’t sleep in a shirt. He knows that the second Peter gets home (is this home now?) the shirt goes off. “I want this off. Now.” 

 There’s a dark, arousing danger in Peter’s eyes as he snaps his head up from where he was looking at Roman’s hands.  There’s a brief second of heavy silence between them that seems to last for days, and for a moment, Roman is wondering if Peter is going to hit him. Like, as a sex thing. But he doesn’t, he just sets his ornamented fingers on Roman’s chin. “You’re so fucking bossy. Especially after I just made you beg.” 

“Whatever,” he mutters, turning his eyes away, suddenly shy. There’s no precedent for this. For having sex with Peter, for falling in love with Peter, there’s no—there’s no right way to do this. If there is, Peter isn’t telling him how, and as much as Roman liked playing Paranormal Investigator in high school, but he’s an adult now. He needs certainty. Needs guidelines, and specifics. There’s no Miranda to direct them. He feels like a dog with its leash in its mouth, like he’s walking himself across the street. 

“Hey. You’re zoning out on me again.” Peter taps Roman’s cheek a second time, so gentle, just caressing when he has the strength to slap. “Do you still wanna fuck?” 

 Does he still wanna fuck? Does he still wanna—oh my god. Roman lifts himself up onto his elbows and wraps a leg around Peter’s waist. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice is low and raspy (more so than usual; he never liked his voice), “Yeah, I still wanna fuck.” 

 “Good.” 

Peter wraps those short, perfect fingers around Roman’s bony ankle and anchors himself onto Roman’s leg, using it to pull himself in closer. For the first time in his life, Roman Godfrey finally understands what it truly means to climb someone like a fucking tree. 

They kiss again, and almost everything in Roman falters and breaks away. He feels fragile and raw and he wants to hate it so badly (and hate Peter for making him feel this way) but he can’t. His entire world has been narrowed down to nothing but Peter’s scruff on jaw and Peter’s hand on his leg, and Peter. Just Peter. Roman feels like an elastic band that’s been stretched as far as he can go, and if Peter releases him now, he doesn’t know if he’ll snap back or just…snap. 

It gets real heated real fast again, and Roman tilts his head back and gasps as Peter breaks off the kiss and latches his lips (not teeth, never teeth) onto his collarbone and rips open his shirt with those beautifully decorated fingers.  

“Hey. Hey! That’s—mmmohmygod—that’s _expensive_! I”—Then, Roman’s brain is nothing but static and he couldn’t give less of a fuck about his expensive pajama shirt because Peter’s doing this wild thing with his lips and Roman’s nipple, and wow, he didn’t even know he was into that, but apparently he’s into that. “Fuck!” His hips lift off the bed and he’s helpless, like a puppet, and Peter has all the strings and he doesn’t even have to think about what his own body is doing. For once, he doesn’t have control.   

Peter runs his fingers up and down Roman’s thin chest and bony ribs, making sure to use his blunt nails to scratch lightly at his nipples and stomach, pupils blown so wide his eyes are almost entirely black. 

“Betcha wish you had your claws, huh?” Roman asks as Peter kisses his navel, “Betcha wish you could sink them in real deep and rip me open. Stick your hands in my guts.” The thought has him raising his hips, rocking them into the air, and letting out a shaky sigh. He wants Peter inside him. Not just in his ass, but literally _inside_ his body, squishing his hands around, his fucking paws, picking up handfuls of his squishy intestines and ripping them apart like they’re candy. He wants Peter to beat him, choke him, to use him as a fucking piñata, slit his throat and then stick is dick in it. “Betcha wish…betcha wish you could kill me and fuck me at the same time.”

There’s a pause. Then, Peter lifts his head. “Roman, what the fuck?” he asks softly, dipping his thumbs beneath Roman’s waistband and rubbing over his hipbones, “No. What? Dude…” He lowers his beautiful face back down and brushes his lips against the sensitive line of skin beneath Roman’s belly button. “I wanna worship you, not kill you.” Then, with that silver tongue of his, he licks all the places on Roman’s tummy that he probably wishes he could bite, muttering: “Fucking weirdo… _no teeth_ , he says. _Dissect me_ , the says. Jesus Christ, you’re one sick fuck, you know that?” 

Yeah, okay, Roman’s one sick fuck. This is nothing new. He’s been a sick fuck since he was a kid and found his father lying all bloody and still on the carpet with a bullet in his mouth. It’s like, a Jeopardy question. Hemlock Grove Personalities for five hundred, please. _This wealthy, lanky delinquent lurks about graveyards, drinks his own blood for kicks, and snorts his feelings. He is one sick fuck._ Who is Roman Godfrey? _Correct_. 

“Shut up.” The desire inside him is cold, layered in sheets of shiny metal, harsh and sharp and rough around the edges. People describe wanting to skull-fuck the shit out of someone someone as a hot, heady feeling, and maybe it is. Maybe Roman’s just gone so cold that not even Peter’s warm tongue against his stomach can warm him up. 

He feels like two separate entities, because the kisses Peter’s pressing to his thin and bony hips as he shimmies off his pants and briefs are melting him like the fucking sun, but inside, he’s this weird combination of raw and numb all at once. He’s feeling too much. He doesn’t feel anything at all. Like a smoldering lump of coal encased by slick, black ice. His heart is steel, still. Perhaps always. 

Peter’s sliding down Roman’s body, reverent, completely _bypassing his dick oh my god you fucking asshole I hate you_ and pressing his lips to Roman’s bony ankle.

“Cold feet,” he observes quietly, rubbing his warm hands against them.

 Yeah. Cold feet. Cold _everything_. And Roman hates Peter right now. Hates him so fucking much because he looks a little too much like Christ washing the sinner’s feet. The long hair and the dark, coarse scruff on his chin and jaw sure  doesn’t help. Roman reaches out, taking Peter’s free hand in his, and he’s trying not to be romantic, but he can’t help but trace a circle around the center of Peter’s warm, honey-colored palm with his cold finger. That’s where he’ll put the nails. Right here. And then he’ll hang Peter from the cross and worship him on his knees.   

“You think too much.” But Peter’s grinning as he pokes the center of Roman’s foot (probably thinking about where _he’ll_ put the nails when he hangs _Roman_ from the cross and worships him on his knees), running his free hand up and down his calves, making the skin prickle and the light, soft hairs stand up on end.  

Roman keeps his hand around Peter’s, still thinking about his soft, sun-kissed skin caked with blood, his hair matted together with it as it dries, tangled around a crown of thorns. Roman has made a savior out of Peter Rumancek. and a devil of him all at once. “You think too little,” he says, his neck starting to ache as he holds up his heavy head (heavy with thoughts of all the disgusting things he wants Peter to do to him), “And I think you should start thinking a little bit more about fucking me.” 

“You think?” Peter drops Roman’s foot and sits up on his knees, rings catching against the chain around his neck as he pulls his shirt over his head. Roman reaches out and traces the beautiful little _g_ on his ribcage. _Gadje_. Peter is an outsider, and Roman is an outsider even to Peter. A _gadje’s gadje_. “Go suck an egg.” 

“Yeah,” he replies fondly, recalling the teasing lilt in Peter’s voice the first time he said it, just an inkling of a flirtation, the prelude to an intimacy so deep that they’ll probably never be able to crawl their way out if it, “Go suck an egg.”  

Peter reaches out for Roman’s hand, guiding it towards his groin, and Roman is in love with him. Roman’s in love with him as he jerks his boxers down to his thighs, Roman’s in love with him as he watches his eyes get even darker with feral, unstable, untamable lust. Roman’s in love with him as he gets a hand around his dick, and Roman’s in love with him when he licks his lips and gasps. 


End file.
